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In less than two weeks Heroes will tell their stories in the lands of Tyria. As everyone is preparing their in-game characters, there’s only one more event between now and then : GamesCom 2012. This year TalkTyria will be represented by Karasu (Raven), MeWulf (Clint) and MyCroft (Thomas).

Time to chill

ArenaNet already stated that their focus is 100% on getting everything ready for the 25th, so this year there’s no playable demo. However a small chillout zone and some cool Community Managers will fly all the way over to Cologne to provide the necessary distractions. Aside from this there’s all the pumped up fans, a community party on Thursday and plenty of other great games in the large halls of the Koelnmesse.

Update: Swag

If you manage to come join all of us in the chill booth come and get a free drink courtesy of ArenaNet. Watch @Guildwars2‘s twitter for the daily password that you can exchange for an in-game GW2 t-shirt voucher code if you catch one of the Community Managers. For those lucky to attend ArenaNet’s private community party you might win one of the exclusive Guild Wars 2 Collector’s Editions!

If you happen to have any more questions left on GuildWars 2 or just about any game on the showfloor feel free to send them our way trough the comments or at my twitter @GWKarasu.

As I said in my last entry here on Talk Tyria, Nerdy Bookahs had been invited to the EUFanDay that took place this Monday and Tuesday in Brighton. I was the one representing our blog there (a first post about this went up on our blog. It includes a growing link collection for write-ups etc. from the EUFanDay). As part of this event, we got to talk with some of the developers about Guild Wars 2. Or rather, each of us (the invited fan sites) were allowed to ask one question. I’d collected a few more than just that, so that was a bit sad. Fortunately, I didn’t have as many questions as some others, so the disappointment from those who sent in their questions wasn’t that big on my site.

Tasha Darke and Dutch Sunshine have just posted the transcription of the interview. You can find the first part on her blog and the second one on GuildMag.

As those two already transcribed the interview, I will refrain from doing the same. It’s a lot of work and time, after all (thank you for doing that, by the way!). Time which I rather want to spend on ranting and musing about which we got to know from the interview.

I’ll assume that you’ve read the interview now. But I’ll try to write in a way that you know what I’m talking about even if you haven’t. As I said, we had about 25 people (give or take 3) who all asked one question. So the questions were very mixed. We had a few about PvP and what we now know is that ArenaNet want to have structured PvP as an esport. We don’t know anything new about the observer mode but it’s probably a safe bet that they’ll do everything they can to include this as fast as possible post-launch because it’s needed if they want it to succeed as esport. Other than the observer mode, I don’t see a reason why they shouldn’t succeed here. Every character in structured PvP is the same level, has the same quality gear, access to all skills, etc. They also want their structured PvP (and WvW) to be easy to understand and get into. Overflow shards will also allow you to join structured PvP matches (but not WvW), so even if your server is crowded, you can still join those PvP matches. From the interview, I take it that we can expect some kind of announcement about additional PvP maps before release. They mentioned one that has lots of underwater combat and a pirate ship! Another one is supposedly going to make GW1 players feel nostalgic.

As you may have already heard, ArenaNet will be hosting a EU FanDay in Brighton (that’s where the European NCSoft office is located) on April 2 – 3. My blog, Nerdy Bookahs was invited there and I will be attending this event! I’m very excited! I’ve recently joined Talk Tyria as well and this is why I’ll be writing over at Nerdy Bookahs as well as here on Talk Tyria about this event (if you follow both, I already apologize for any double-posts you’ll read ^^).

We will get to talk with a few of the game’s developers: Eric Flannum (Lead Game Designer), Colin Johanson (Lead Content Designer), Ree Soesbee (Writer and Lore & Continuity Designer), Kristen Perry (Character Artist) and Josh Petrie (Tools Developer). And we were asked to prepare questions. Now, whenever somebody tells me to ask questions, my mind goes blank. I never know what to say or ask! Which is good for you because that means that I’ll be collecting questions until Sunday evening (EU time… maybe Monday morning – depends on how much time I’ll have for writing down the questions before the flight).

If you’re on Twitter, follow #eufanday for updates about the event (or just to see us attendees spamming on there). Or follow my personal Twitter account (Paeroka) for updates from me.

And, as I said, I’ll collect questions here and on my own blog. So leave a comment with any questions you might have about the game and I will try to ask them!

Boy-howdy, you guys sure know how to bombard a man with questions! I had a truckload to ask and I can’t guarantee that I asked them all. If I missed yours off or haven’t included it I’m very sorry but either I couldn’t find time with the devs to ask them or the answer would have been too similar to another person’s question. Oh, and I ignored all of you who asked about the release date.

Guild Wars is over six years old. Wow! Has it been that long? Has it really been that long since I first answered Adelbern’s call? I joined 2 months after the game was released, but early enough to remember refund points that were needed when changing stats. After joining/leaving/being kicked from a few guilds, I joined DRGN, a guild that included my sons and my wife, and I dragged along a co-worker as well. I made online friends and watched as they graduated high school, attended college, and graduated from there as well. I have been part of the same guild that lost an officer to a tragic ‘real-world’ accident in 2008. I was involved with the first “Pink Day in LA” in support of breast cancer awareness, where DRGN gave out red and silver dyes (trying to approximate pink dye) and we filled 3 international districts.

Pink Day was started by a couple of officers in our guild, one of whom writes for TalkTyria; my son, Connor, The Lazy Geek. Yep, I’m proud to say we are related. This idea, where, if only for a brief moment, gaming stops and as a community we focus on something larger than the virtual world where we play, is pretty unique in the gaming world. Pink Day has grown to something utterly amazing, especially when the never ending ball of energy, M A L I B U Barbie and GW-EN, together with TalkTyria and many other guilds and alliances, raised over $10,000 in 2010. And, for the first time, ANET did something unheard of in support of a community event; they produced a Pink Dye for Breast Cancer awareness. It was the entire Guild Wars community that made last year’s Pink Day such a success; I am very honored to be a small part of this active and interesting community!

PAX 2011

PAX Prime 2011 has come and gone. What a whirlwind of activity; unplanned stays at a gracious host’s home, an ANET Party held at their HQ, the playable GW2 demo, a sheep named ‘Sheila,’ and many interesting panels. So, what was learned about GW2?
What follows will be a, “conversation,” between father (Guido) and son The Lazy Geek. Continue reading →

Another PAX Prime has come and gone from our city of Seattle. Fortunately we managed to avoid the H1Nerd1 outbreak like we had a few years ago but as always, PAX can be a very draining experience. Just like Frenzy + Healing Signet: it’s awesome and hilarious, and probably will leave you wiped. There’s so much to see and so much excitement in the air! NCSoft has always had a large presence at PAX, typically having a large space with huge murals of the games on display along with tons of demo stations. While they did just announce their new MMO Wildstar, GW2 was really the star of the show; so much in fact that it had 3 different locations dedicated to it (Alienware and Logitech). Even with more floor space than probably any other single game aside from Halo, the Guild Wars 2 stations and booths were always completely packed for all three days, literally from opening to closing.

I’d like to point out how extremely thrilled and proud I am at the extensive coverage that our fabulous krewe and friends have provided us over the past few weeks. Namely, Karasu & MeWulf for Gamescon and Elixabeth & Kaae for Pax-Prime. If you ever catch these fine ladies and gents at a con, be sure to buy them a round for their amazing efforts. Don’t fret: there is still more to come from PAX and there are plenty of outlets for you to find the latest and greatest in information, media, and conversation about what was seen and learned these past 2 weekends.

I thought I’d post a few of my personal favorite images from the events and share with you guys are galleries for both. Also, be sure to check out our buddies over at GuildWars2PvP for extensive discussion on competitive information and GuildWars2Live.com for some amazing HD videos of gameplay, panels, and parties!